I long ago replaced all those aggravating wire clothes hangers with sturdy plastic which don't get tangled up. Recently Jim needed some wire for some project or other, and none to be found around here. I had several packages and rolls of wire for crafting but all too flimsy...he said nothing could replace a good wire clothes rack! (And when did the term "rack" disappear for clotheshangers) Seldom use the drycleaners anymore except for large comforters and such...but guess it's time to send off a few winter clothes to be cleaned so we'll have wire coathangers again. Before we moved we found an attic box which held an old metal Slinky, Rubik's Cube, and Etch-a-Sketch. It was funny to see my son, then 35 or so, playing with them again. Never owned a hulahoop as I don't think boys enjoyed those like the girls did. I think I've read that parsnips are best tasting when harvested in Fall after a frost. I guess nowadays they briefly refrigerate them to fool Mother Nature but I don't look for them until the first cold spell when I start thinking vegetable soup. Somehow like sauteed cabbage and baked yams they say Fall to me. I've never eaten parsnips except in stews...how do y'all cook them? I'm buying extra herbs to turn into herbed butter and freeze...they're cheaper now than in winter. Basil, parsley, etc. (no mint as we don't care for it). But all are easily available yearround, at least at my favored grocery. We go back to my old neighborhood to shop every other week as that store caters to pickier eaters...it's miles out of the way but worth it to easily find what I want and the deli section is the best! josh

I'm so sorry about your losing 3 roses. I know how bad I would feel, was hoping that is one scourge I can avoid this year, see you are in my zone, so I guess it's not a southern rose thing. If I lose any plant like the nice zinnia specimen I had today, got knocked over and broken, it makes me sad; my neighbor sprayed my nice violets through a fence which made some pleasing, healthy summer foliage where nothing else will grow. I know he didn't do it for spite, but I will have to figure out how to head off that problem again if it can be done. I did see the photos of rrd and other plagues (much appreciated) and hope I would have sense enough to recognize it if confronted with it. Let's see so far it's been slugs, then learned about those too late here, big bites (leafhoppes, rabbits, what?), malaise, a few spider mites (can live with that) and now the Japanese Beetles which, knock on wood, have been manageable so far. If it weren't for this forum, I wouldn't have been prepared for those, was right on that when the first ones appeared, it will be a long month and couple weeks into August until they are "supposed" to go underground to lay eggs, ugh. I am beginning to see the virtues of once-bloomers. They bloom early enough to avoid the summer ailments except for leaf damage. I so hope you will be able to replace your roses, I don't know if you should plant in the same ground where that has surfaced or not. I did save a lot about it though. For some reason, it really creeps me out, worse than the JB's. To clarify something I said on another thread and without starting a new one, I thought Pickering had sent me a mislabelled rose instead of Pat Austin. Not so. That is one of my two roses that are languishing the most; the other is one of the Gruss, the other Gruss is putting out new growth all over the place. Pat put out his first true bloom, but I don't know if that rose will pull through or not, very small, wilted today so I had to quick water, perked up, thought once every 2 days should be enough. Not so for some. Every day it is some darn new thing to deal with. But my first stargazer burst into bloom today, and it makes the disappointing setbacks seem worthwhile. Some of my roses are not blooming true at all. The first bloom on the Pat Austin looked like a yellow with white outer petals then fizzled. One I posted some photos on, Hyde Hall, is now blooming crazy quilt colors, I don't get it. The best performers as of now are my two Charlotte's (they get the most sun and in spite of the JB's, good repeat) and Dark Lady, she does well in a quite shaded spot. The second flush blooms on the other roses, some are deformed and smaller.

Being from the coastal Northeast, Spring is often a real disappointment--too chilly, too rainy, too stormy, too overcast. This Spring has actually been quite nice here though. The mini-drought has ended, temperatures have been mild, and there is a good amount of sunshine. Things seem to be greening up or flowering quite nicely. I remember tooooo many seasons where it was cold, plants and flowers were on hold until Mid April or latter and then suddenly it was full Summer (so if you blinked you missed the Spring only to find the tulips baking in the pre-Summer heat).--Still by Mid-April, we're basically free from a damaging frost. It really is the shortest season here. Fall is best (and the longest season). First frost occurs rather late in the year (Mid-late November and really hard frost may not arrive until Mid-December; I remember seeing geraniums and impatients in bloom until mid-December years past!) So, right now I am enjoying a decent, real Spring previously known mostly as an idealized fantasy. Happy gardening!

Dawna, What a perfectly awful experience you had with the fire ants! That is absolutely the worst fire ant tale I have ever heard and I am just glad that you survived. (That must have been quite a birthday celebration, at least prior to the encounter with the fire ants.) We had a local resident in Love County who passed away last summer after he was stung by several bees. He was in full cardiac and/or respiratory arrest and the paramedics couldn't save him. He was in his mid-30s and knew he was highly allergic to the bees, so I can only assume that he didn't carry an Epi-Pen with him. It was so sad. Y'all know I try to be as organic as possible, but I will whip out the chemicals in a heartbeat to deal with Fire Ants. The ONLY product we have ever used that was truly effective is called Over and Out. There is one treatment for mounds and one for broadcasting. You can't use it near edibles, though, so in the veggie garden I use Serenade. I didn't even want to try Over and Out, because we had previously tried every fire ant product on the market and nothing worked. So you can imagine my relief when this one product actually performed as promised. When we moved here from Texas, I was hoping the colder winters would keep the fire ants down there and not let them move up here. Sadly, we discovered before we even built our house in 1999 that the fire ants were already here. However, I do think the cold keeps them down somewhat because we don't have all that many here compared to what we had in Fort Worth. It is my understanding that they are slowly adapting and developing more and more cold-hardiness as time goes on, so it is anyone's guess as to how far north they may eventually go. Our weather radio went off at 9:30 this morning to tell us that Jefferson and Garvin counties were under a tornado watch unil 6 p.m., and it went off a little while ago to tell us the watch was extended to 10 p.m., so I hope y'all are safe there in Garvin County today and tonight. (WE have our weather radio programmed to alert us to watches/warningns not only for Love County but for the 6 nearest Oklahoma counties and 3 nearest Texas counties. Storms aren't going to sneak up on us! Dawn